“Let ‘Em Eat Lead” may as well be the rallying cry of the Republican party. No longer the party of Lincoln, it’s now the Party of Marie Antoinette.

While it’s legal in Ohio to carry guns openly or concealed, the Cleveland police union urged Ohio’s Governor Kasich to suspend the law during the Republican convention. While Kasich couldn’t quite do that, the RNC banned guns inside the convention center and in a large zone around the building. Think about that for a minute. While the republicans, the political party responsible for enabling the laws that made possible the shooting of ninety two people, 12 fatally, in Cleveland the month of their convention there, they sat safe and free from gun violence inside Quicken Loans Arena.

Why? If the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, as they love telling us while fattening their bank accounts with NRA blood money, didn’t they want to assure their safety with as many guns as possible inside and outside the arena? Did you know that guns were also banned at the RNC in Tampa in 2012? One hundred and thirty thousand ordinary Americans have been shot in the U.S. since 2012. But the republican elite again sat smug and safe from gun violence inside Tampa’s Amalie Arena. The absolute height of republican hypocrisy is their “Let ’em eat cake” lawmaking. Only nobody ever died from cake. The republicans were safe from guns while in Cleveland. Meanwhile in Cleveland, a two year old girl in her mother’s arms was shot in the head, and an eleven year old girl was shot while watching tv in her living room. Too bad they too couldn’t have been safe inside Quicken Loans Arena.

Dear Bernie Supporters, Undecideds, Swing Voters, Everyone who doesn’t see the difference between the two parties; no party is perfect. Politics is compromise, and it’s painful and often not pretty. Some of you are angry the DNC erected a fence around the convention. With terrorism and gun nuts, of course they did. But they didn’t exclude themselves from living by the laws they passed for us to live by. The DNC has passed laws to benefit the environment, children, the aged, labor, women, minorities, and improve health care. Their convention wasn’t a fracking barbecue over coals with oil lamps. They didn’t dine on endangered species while being waited on by non- union eight year old immigrants without Pre-k or health care, while their leadership burned down a women’s clinic. They’re with us. And #imwithher.

Yes, the DNC put a fence around its convention for safety. But hey, guess what? The RNC took away your guns.

There IS a DIFFERENCE. Let’s vote the Democrats back into our government.

It is inspirational to see so much passion and idealism in politics again. Many of us remember feeling that exhilarating hope and joyous promise when Bill Clinton took office, and Hillary Clinton renewed the standard for how inspiring a role model a First Lady of the United States could be. I remember watching in awe in 1993 as Mrs. Clinton spoke to congress, without notes, for over two hours, outlining the new president’s health care proposal. She was smart, beautiful, classy, involved; the promise of how far women could now aspire to go.

I worked for Bill Clinton’s election, and then Al Gore’s, and I know your pain is as great as what we all felt when in 2000, the Supreme Court, to the great detriment of our constitution, threw the presidential election to George W. Bush.

When Al Gore said it was time to come together and support our new president (Bush), we were outraged, depressed, sick to our stomachs, and having none of it. NEVER! I cried. A lot. I’m sure my head would have exploded if the election had been ongoing, and Al Gore had asked us to actually VOTE FOR George W. Bush. I know I wouldn’t have.

But here is the difference in what we went through then and what is at stake today. George W. Bush was the political opposite of Al Gore. George W. Bush opposed every good policy and plan for America’s future that Al Gore embraced. George W. Bush was unqualified to be the president of the United States; intellectually, temperamentally, and in his lack of experience and vision. George W. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, was/is a war profiteer and an architect of murder and destruction. I will never understand why Al Gore didn’t keep fighting.Today: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have voted together ninety three percent of the time. Think about that. Bernie and Hillary have worked together to support the issues and legislation that matter to all of us, ninety three percent of the time. Hillary’s vice presidential pick, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, received a ninety percent positive rating in the liberal Americans for Democratic Action rating of 2014 Senate votes.

I love Bernie Sanders. I am so grateful that the Bernie Revolution forced the Democratic party’s platform even further to the left than it was, and it was already progressive (LGBTQ rights, choice for women, civil rights, minimum wage hikes, fixing the social safety net, education, financial regulation, supporting science and the environment, etc. etc.) You did that. That is what I call a successful revolution, and yes, of course it must continue. I understand the impulse to throw it all away in anger and frustration. I beg you not to. I am respectfully asking you to look at Hillary’s lifetime, true, successful record in fighting for all of us; all the people Bernie fights for. The right has so brainwashed the willing into seeing Hillary Clinton as the devil, it is shameful that we need to point out the incredible work for America this woman has devoted her life to for decades. I am not going to go down the list of what she has been subjected to by a partisan congress and partisan news outlets. Suffice to say, she has shown up every time, publicly put it all on the line, done her best, taken the heat, answered and answered and answered, without rancor or complaint. Donald Trump won’t even release his tax returns. (The first presidential candidate in fifty years, by the way, to hide his tax returns. Where is the press and congress now?)

I know. You are so angry you’d rather see Donald Trump elected, just for spite. I get it. I am the best grudge holder in the history of my family; Jews with 25 Olympic Gold Medals in Grudge Holding and Cutting Off Our Noses to Spite Our Faces. But listen, after you get past that natural instinct of rebellion, you must see what is at stake for the future survival, yes survival, of life as we know it. Donald Trump is the least qualified person to ever run for the highest office in the land. He makes George W. Bush look like Carl Sagan. Make no mistake, Trump is a danger to America, the world, and the future of both. I have nothing against him personally, he simply has zero qualifications for this job. Hillary Clinton is not “the lesser of two evils”. Hillary Clinton is one of the most qualified people to ever run for president of the United States. In forty years of public service, there are going to be some corners cut, some deals made, some less than idealistically perfect votes, some political manipulation. That’s politics, that’s life. That’s how things get done at all in the real world. Joan Rivers would say, “Oh, grow up”. I’m not minimizing actions of Hillary’s that offend you, I’m not dismissing your feelings. But nobody’s perfect. Life isn’t perfect. Politics is the least perfect place of all.

Bernie hasn’t given up. He knows the only way he can continue his revolution and have a powerful voice in our government is in a Clinton administration. You love him, you trust him, you support him. Then trust he is asking you to do the right thing for the right reason when he asks you to vote for Hillary. For our country. For the revolution.